This was taken from a 'googlegroup' focusing on restaurants. The topic was 'Required Tipping'. Thank you, Jesse!

Jesus, this is a prime example of why auto gratuity is put onto bills. People have conflicting ideas and ever changing personalities. The only thing that stays the same is that there are service people who are trying to make a living dealing with people like you.

In my opinion, there should be an auto gratuity everywhere. The old meaning of "gratuity" means "to ensure great service". To, ENSURE great service; and it was primarily given at the beginning of the meal. As a restaurant manager myself, one difficulty I have is convincing my service people that more sales equals higher tips. If there was guaranteed gratuity percentage based on sales, than that would be good for the servers (more money), that would be good for my restaurant (higher sales so they can make more money), and it would be good for the guests (higher quality food through suggestive offers and an ENSURED good service). I would ensure them because it would allow me the opportunity to turn over any server who was not performing to the highest degree. I am sure that it would be a prime work industry as well where people would want to work; applications for people to replace the bad ones would be plentiful.

In response to this comment, "If you want an auto-gratuity added onto all bills, why not just pay the wait staff well and raise the prices to accommodate. Then, no confusion! Sheesh!", here's some input on raising prices...

"Can you dine out with an average menu price of $17.00? If so, great, but can
the rest of the general public? Lets break it down for you. Its Friday night with a restaurant capacity of 200 people. You have 60 tables in your restaurant. You are currently on a wait. Lets assume that you are allowing four tables per server; which requires 15 servers. You have somewhere inside 20 to 25 tickets in the kitchen at any given moment, which requires a minimum of 5 cooks, maybe more depending on how what your menu is. You have one dish washer, one prep cook, three hosts and three managers on duty (a kitchen manager, floor manager, and GM). Lets say you have an average turn time of 45min/table. Here is your break down:

15 servers @ $2.13/hr = $31.95
5 cooks @ avrg. $9.00/hr = $45.00
Dish&Prep @ avrg. $8.00/hr = $16.00
3 hosts @ avrg. $3.00 (if tipped)
2 managers @ aprox. $13.46/hr (salaried $35,000,10hr days,5days/wk)
1 GM @ $19.23/hr (salaried $60,000,10hr days,6days/wk)
TOTAL LABOR PER HOUR = $134.64

Gross sales = aprox. $3,120 (80 tables in one hour, avrg. 3 guests, at avrg.
$13.00/person)
after labor = $2,985.36
after food cost = $2,080.56 (avrg. 29% of gross sales; allowing for waste)
after bar cost = $ 1,768.56 (avrg. 10% of gross sales)
after maintenance fees, building leases, electricity, depreciation, contracted services, supplies, etc. 

You see where I am going with this? Lets keep in mind that this is during
the peak hour. We are not taking into consideration the two hours before
this that all the employees were on the clock setting up for the volume at
minimal sales. 

Bottom line, if we raise prices, people are less likely to eat out. It is a mental thing. If they see prices within their budget, they will spend, in theory, the same amount, more often. By raising prices and wages, the two would in fact cancel themselves out. The difference being, less guests = less profit for the restaurant = no restaurant = no job. 

People have spent many years working the restaurant business, my philosophy,
if a multi-million dollar company is suggesting you act in a certain way,
listen to them, they are multi-million dollar companies for a reason. Which
is the same reason you have yet to see required tipping. We may debate about
it, but until it is a factual way to increase guest count and increase
profit, it will not happen."

Thanks again, Jesse! We'd love to hear more from management!

Contact Me!! if you have any questions, comments or suggestions!!

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